


In which Slick sucks at feelings

by Rikku



Category: Homestuck, Intermission - Fandom
Genre: Fluff, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-08
Updated: 2012-10-08
Packaged: 2017-11-15 21:51:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/532152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rikku/pseuds/Rikku
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In this story Slick sucks at feelings</p>
            </blockquote>





	In which Slick sucks at feelings

Slick paused in slamming the chump’s head against the table, on account of how he said something. “Eh?” said Slick.

The man spat out blood and coughed, weakly. He was pretty well beat up by that point, though Slick had tried to restrain himself on this particular occasion, he didn’t want to make the pile of corpses they left behind any bigger than it needed to be. “I _said_ ,” he said, with an admirable ferocity, “that you may seem tough enough now, but when Snowman gets to you you’ll cry like a little—”

Slick screamed and stabbed him a lot.

He was snapped out of his rage by a hand tapping sternly at his shoulder, and turned to stab at him as well. Droog stepped back with the ease of long practice.

“We’re trying _not_ to kill them, if you recall,” he said, all classy reproof, and Slick sneered at him.

“Yeah yeah, I _know_ the plan. Now scat. Deuce’ll need your help or something, geddoutta here.” 

Droog rolled his eyes but obeyed, of course, he always did. Slick made a face at his back.

“We’re tryin’ _not_ to kill ‘em, if you recall!” he mimicked, all la-di-da, and slammed the fella’s face against the table again casually. He snorted. “Stuck-up slimebag ...”

“Yeah,” his victim agreed muzzily. Slick released his grip on his hair in shock, and the man just kinda slid to his knees, bleedily. Slick fetched out his spare knife so he had two. This was a two-knife sort of situation.

“That’s my crew you’re talking about,” he said.

The man grinned at him, all bloodstained teeth. Bank tellers. “That chump? He’s as bent as a broker!”

Slick crowed a laugh. “ _Droog_? Droog ain’t no three-letter man.” Slick had peeked at his magazines, couple of times. Monochrome ladies posing elegantly. Not really his thing, but it definitely meant Droog wasn’t that way inclined.

“Yeah, ‘cos you know your crew so well,” the teller said, viciously, and then coughed up blood. Slick wanted to ask what he meant by that, exactly, in some subtle way so he’d get proper answers out of him.

“What the fuck are you getting at,” he snarled.

The teller just coughed up more blood. Slick panicked. “Hey, stop dyi – _stop_ it, stop dying!” he said, and then resorted to his first course of action in case of emergencies. Which was stabbing.

He realised this was unhelpful a bit too late, then stabbed the corpse some more, vengeful at the realisation.

“Ain’t no one speaks about my crew like that,” he said at last, lamely, and gave the body a quick kick under the nearest table so’s Droog wouldn’t notice.

The idea kinda stuck with him, though. He knew his crew, didn’t he? ‘course he did.

“Deuce,” he said, while they were all standing in an alley, panting for breath – ‘cept for Droog, who was dabbing at his brow elegantly with a napkin – while frantically running away from the cops. “I know you lot well enough, don’t I? ‘course I do.”

“m Boxcars,” Boxcars rumbled. “Deuce’s there.” He gestured behind him. The little guy was pretty difficult to see behind his bulk.

Slick scowled. “Wasn’t talkin’ to _you_ , goof,” he said, and woulda said more – you couldn’t hold a conversation with Boxcars in between you and the other party and it was _annoying as fuck_ , he had plenty to say on the subject – but then there was the wail of sirens and they were running again.

 

 

Droog was his _best friend_. Kinda. Well, he didn’t shove Slick’s face off his shoulder when Slick had had five too many and needed to sleep it off, couldn’t say fairer than that. 

Though he did charge him for any suits he drooled on, because of how he was a tight-assed penny-pinching bastard scumbag.

Anyway he was his best friend, and thinking about it, Slick found this whole idea actually kinda feasible. Droog always did dress and talk way too fancy. In hindsight, maybe that was a sign.  
A sign that he was _theatrical_.

Slick coulda sworn he’d seen Droog reading perfectly normal porn of, y’know, _ladies_ , though, at least once, but when he tried to crane over and look behind Droog’s newspaper Droog just folded it flat and gave him an unimpressed look.

Slick bypassed step two – stabbing – out of friendship, so went straight to his last-ditch desperation plan. He enlisted Deuce’s aid.

It was a really fucking bad idea. 

He didn’t _actually_ blow up the hideout, at least that was something.

Still. After that whole fiasco Slick decided to just put it out of his mind, and did. Wasn’t that it even mattered, really, he was just ... curious? Was that what curiosity felt like? Huh.

Ah well.

 

It came up again kind of unexpectedly, a few months later. Slick was sitting on the table, which had been hurriedly cleared of dishes and cards, bleeding irritably.

“Stop _moving_ , you dolt,” Droog admonished, carefully taping a pad over his eye. Where his eye wasn’t.

The pain made his stomach lurch and his vision, what was left of it, all wobbly, but he ignored that and just sort of glared at Droog and tried to stand anyway. Droog met his eyes. Eye. Damn was that going to take some getting used to.

“Jack,” he said, quietly, and Slick subsided into grumbles and let him patch him up. 

Droog passed him a flask once he was done, and Slick snagged it easily. “Knew there was a reason I kept you around,” he said, gulping it down faster than he normally would, liking the burn of it.

Droog, rather surprisingly, seated himself on the table next to him. Straight-backed and probably he was taking care not to so much as crease his perfectly ironed clothes but still, the sentiment was there. He took the flask from Slick, and took a sizeable gulp from it. “Slick,” he said, chiding.  
“Snowman’s the mayor’s daughter. She’s off limits, don’cha know that? You can’t hurt her half so much as she can hurt you,” he added, before Slick could launch into a monologue of exactly how much he hated that bitch and exactly why.

“Oh _yeah_?” he said again, sulkily.

“This time you lost your eye,” Droog said. “You’re lucky that’s all it was. What happens next time, huh?” Slick said nothing, and Droog exhaled, slow. “... You’re gonna be the death of us, boss,” he said, more rueful than reproachful.

“Ain’t none of you what don’t choose to be here, and don’t you forget it,” Slick said reflexively, and held out his hand for the flask. Droog didn’t pass it over. “Hey!”

Droog relinquished the flask and produced a long cigarette instead. He lit it, and blew a perfect smoke ring, and then said, “Getting kinda sick of patching you up.”

“Did I ask you to?” Slick snapped. “I’m fine! I feel like a million bucks. Let me up and I’ll show you just how fine I am wait are you worried? You’re _worried_.” He stopped. Feelings. How did you feelings. Uhhh. “... You got a thing for me?” he ventured.

Droog blew out another smoke ring and blinked him. “That’s,” he said. “That’s really the only reason you can think of for someone caring – oh, forget it.” He rubbed his hand over his scrupulously clean-shaven jaw. (Foolish of Slick never to see the signs.) He was actually kinda handsome in this low light – well, he was always handsome, but this way he was just _kinda_ handsome, and Slick liked that better, really, liked him close enough to see the too-early grey in his hair and the tiredness in his eyes and the smirk on his face. “No. No I do not. It’d be like kissing a cutlery drawer.”

Slick spluttered. “Well excuse _me_ ,” he said. “Not like I know how things go in your fancy invert world.”

Droog choked on smoke. It was a beautiful moment.

“What?” Slick asked, out of duty.

“Mainly just you using a word like _invert_ ,” Droog said, recovering. “I was expecting more – dunno. Fag. Pansy, possibly. More swear words mixed in, too.”

Slick paused. “So y’are, then?”

Droog blew out smoke. Then grabbed the flask and took a hearty swallow, which wasn’t very Droogish behaviour at all. He set it back down. “Might be,” he said carefully, eyes fixed on the wall.

Slick patted condescendingly at his shoulder. “Doesn’t change nothing, you know. Still the same stuck-up bastard as ever you was.”

And the light was dim enough that he couldn’t quite decide if that was a smile on Droog’s face. “You’re too kind,” he said dryly.

Slick reclaimed the flask, and they drank and smoked in companionable silence.


End file.
